The  ffeUgion  of  the  Future 


By    Charles    W.    Eliot 


BL  390  .EA5  1909 

Eliot,  Charles  William,  1834 

-1926. 
The  religion  of  the  future 


CHARLES    \Y.    KLIOT. 


*     FEB  4  1910      * 


5^£S/CAL  SE'f-#; 


{Ifje  Eeligton  of 
tJje  Jfuture 


BY 


CHARLES  W.  ELIOT 


BOSTON 

JOHN  W.  LUCE  AND  COMPANY 

1909 


FROM 

(Efje  Harbarb  ^{jeolostcal  3&etrieto 

OCTOBER,   I909 


A  lecture  delivered  at  the  close  of 

the  Clebentfj  g>t&&itm  of  tfje 
garbarb  Summer  g>cfjool  of 
Qftjeologp,  July  22,  1909 


As  students  in  this  Summer's 
School  of  Theology  you  have 
attended  a  series  of  lectures  on 
fluctuations  in  religious  interest,  on  the 
frequent  occurrence  of  religious  declines 
followed  soon  by  recoveries  or  regenera- 
tions both  within  and  without  the 
churches,  on  the  frequent  attempts  to 
bring  the  prevalent  religious  doctrines 
into  harmony  with  new  tendencies  in  the 
intellectual  world,  on  the  constant 
struggle  between  conservatism  and  lib- 
eralism in  existing  churches  and  be- 
tween idealism  and  materialism  in  so- 
ciety at  large,  on  the  effects  of  popu- 
i 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

lar  education  and  the  modern  spirit  of 
inquiry  on  religious  doctrines  and  or- 
ganizations, on  the  changed  views  of 
thinking  people  concerning  the  nature 
of  the  world  and  of  man,  on  the  increase 
of  knowledge  as  affecting  religion,  and 
on  the  new  ideas  of  God.  You  have  also 
listened  to  lectures  on  psychotherapy,  a 
new  development  of  an  ancient  tendency 
to  mix  religion  with  medicine,  and  on 
the  theory  of  evolution,  a  modern  scien- 
tific doctrine  which  within  fifty  years  has 
profoundly  modified  the  religious  con- 
ceptions and  expectations  of  many  think- 
ing people.  You  have  heard,  too,  how 
the  new  ideas  of  democracy  and  social 
progress  have  modified  and  ought  to 
modify  not  only  the  actual  work  done  by 

2 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  churches,  but  the  whole  conception 
of  the  functions  of  churches.  Again, 
you  have  heard  how  many  and  how  pro- 
found are  the  religious  implications  in 
contemporary  philosophy.  Your  atten- 
tion has  been  called  to  the  most  recent 
views  concerning  the  conservation  of 
energy  in  the  universe,  to  the  wonderful 
phenomena  of  radio-activity,  and  to  the 
most  recent  definitions  of  atom,  mole- 
cule, ion,  and  electron — human  imagin- 
ings which  have  much  to  do  with  the 
modern  conceptions  of  matter  and  spirit. 
The  influence  on  popular  religion  of 
modern  scholarship  applied  to  the  New 
Testament  has  also  engaged  your  atten- 
tion; and,  finally,  you  have  heard  an  ex- 
position    of     religious     conditions     and 

3 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

practices  in  the  United  States  which  as- 
sumed an  intimate  connection  between 
the  advance  of  civilization  and  the 
contemporaneous  aspects  of  religions, 
and  illustrated  from  history  the  service 
of  religion — and  practically  of  Chris- 
tianity— to  the  progress  of  civilization 
through  its  contributions  to  individual 
freedom,  intellectual  culture,  and  social 
co-operation. 

The  general  impression  you  have  re- 
ceived from  this  comprehensive  survey 
must  surely  be  that  religion  is  not  a  fixed, 
but  a  fluent  thing.  It  is,  therefore,  whol- 
ly natural  and  to  be  expected  that  the 
conceptions  of  religion  prevalent  among 
educated  people  should  change  from 
century  to  century.     Modern  studies  in 

4 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

comparative  religion  and  in  the  history 
of  religions  demonstrate  that  such  has 
been  the  case  in  times  past.  Now  the 
nineteenth  century  immeasurably  sur- 
passed all  preceding  centuries  in  the  in- 
crease of  knowledge,  and  in  the  spread 
of  the  spirit  of  the  scientific  inquiry  and 
of  the  passion  for  truth-seeking.  Hence 
the  changes  in  religious  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices, and  in  the  relation  of  churches  to 
human  society  as  a  whole,  were  much 
deeper  and  more  extensive  in  that  cen- 
tury than  ever  before  in  the  history  of 
the  world;  and  the  approach  made  to 
the  embodiment  in  the  actual  practices 
of  mankind  of  the  doctrines  of  the  great- 
est religious  teachers  was  more  signifi- 
cant and  more  rapid  than  ever  before. 

5 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

The  religion  of  a  multitude  of  humane 
persons  in  the  twentieth  century  may, 
therefore,  be  called  without  inexcusable 
exaggeration  a  "new  religion," — not  that 
a  single  one  of  its  doctrines  and  practices 
is  really  new  in  essence,  but  only  that  the 
wider  acceptance  and  better  actual  appli- 
cation of  truths  familiar  in  the  past  at 
many  times  and  places,  but  never  taken 
to  heart  by  the  multitude  or  put  in  force 
on  a  large  scale,  are  new.  I  shall  at- 
tempt to  state  without  reserve  and  in 
simplest  terms  free  from  technicalities, 
first,  what  the  religion  of  the  future 
seems  likely  not  to  be,  and  secondly  what 
it  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  be.  My 
point  of  view  is  that  of  an  American  lay- 
man, whose  observing  and  thinking  life 
6 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

has    covered    the    extraordinary    period 
since  the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle  was  pub- 
lished,   anaesthesia    and    the    telegraph 
came  into   use,   Herbert  Spencer  issued 
his  first  series   of   papers  on   evolution, 
Kuenen,  Robertson  Smith,  and  Wellhaus- 
en    developed    and  vindicated    Biblical 
criticism,  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Po- 
litical Economy  appeared,  and  the  Unit- 
ed States  by  going  to  war  with  Mexico 
set  in  operation  the  forces  which  abol- 
ished slavery  on  the  American  continent 
— the  period  within  which  mechanical 
power   came    to    be    widely    distributed 
through  the  explosive  engine  and  the  ap- 
plications of  electricity,  and  all  the  great 
fundamental  industries  of  civilized  man- 
kind were  reconstructed. 

7 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

( i )  The  religion  of  the  future  will  not 
be  based  on  authority,  either  spiritual  or 
temporal.  The  decline  of  the  reliance 
upon  absolute  authority  is  one  of  the 
most  significant  phenomena  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  This  decline  is  to  be  seen 
everywhere, — in  government,  in  educa- 
tion, in  the  church,  in  business,  and  in 
the  family.  The  present  generation  is 
willing,  and  indeed  often  eager,  to  be 
led;  but  it  is  averse  to  being  driven,  and 
it  wants  to  understand  the  grounds  and 
sanctions  of  authoritative  decisions.  As 
a  rule,  the  Christian  churches,  Roman, 
Greek,  and  Protestant,  have  heretofore 
relied  mainly  upon  the  principle  of 
authority,  the  Reformation  having  sub- 
stituted for  an  authoritative  church  an 
8 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

authoritative  book;  but  it  is  evident  that 
the  authority  both  of  the  most  authori- 
tative churches  and  of  the  Bible  as  a 
verbally  inspired  guide  is  already  greatly 
impaired,  and  that  the  tendency  towards 
liberty  is  progressive,  and  among  edu- 
cated men  irresistible. 

(2)  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  in 
the  religion  of  the  future  there  will  be 
no  personifications  of  the  primitive  forces 
of  nature,  such  as  light,  fire,  frost,  wind, 
storm,  and  earthquake,  although  primi- 
tive religions  and  the  actual  religions  of 
barbarous  or  semi-civilized  peoples 
abound  in  such  personifications.  The 
mountains,  groves,  volcanoes,  and  oceans 
will  no  longer  be  inhabited  by  either 
kindly  or  malevolent  deities;  although 
9 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

man  will  still  look  to  the  hills  for  rest, 
still  find  in  the  ocean  a  symbol  of  infinity, 
and  refreshment  and  delight  in  the  for- 
ests and  the  streams.  The  love  of  nature 
mounts  and  spreads,  while  faith  in  fair- 
ies, imps,  nymphs,  demons,  and  angels 
declines  and  fades  away. 

(3)  There  will  be  in  the  religion  of 
the  future  no  worship,  express  or  im- 
plied, of  dead  ancestors,  teachers,  or 
rulers;  no  more  tribal,  racial,  or  tutelary 
gods ;  no  identification  of  any  human  be- 
ing, however  majestic  in  character,  with 
the  Eternal  Deity.  In  these  respects  the 
religion  of  the  future  will  not  be  essen- 
tially new,  for  nineteen  centuries  ago 
Jesus  said,  "Neither  in  this  mountain, 
nor  in  Jerusalem,  shall  ye  worship  the 
10 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Father God    is    a    Spirit    and    they 

that  worship  him  must  worship  in  spirit 
and  truth."  It  should  be  recognized, 
however,  first,  that  Christianity  was  soon 
deeply  affected  by  the  surrounding  pag- 
anism, and  that  some  of  these  pagan  in- 
trusions have  survived  to  this  day;  and 
secondly,  that  the  Hebrew  religion,  the 
influence  of  which  on  the  Christian  has 
been,  and  is,  very  potent,  was  in  the  high- 
est degree  a  racial  religion,  and  its  Holy 
of  Holies  was  local.  In  war-times,  that 
is,  in  times  when  the  brutal  or  savage 
instincts  remaining  in  humanity  became 
temporarily  dominant,  and  good-will  is 
limited  to  people  of  the  same  nation,  the 
survival  of  a  tribal  or  national  quality  in 
institutional  Christanity  comes  out  very 
ii 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

plainly.  The  aid  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
is  still  invoked  by  both  parties  to  inter- 
national warfare,  and  each  side  praises 
and  thanks  Him  for  its  successes.  In- 
deed, the  same  spirit  has  often  been  ex- 
hibited in  civil  wars  caused  by  religious 
differences. 

''Now  glory  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  from 
whom  all  glories  are! 
And  glory  to  our    sovereign  liege,  King 
Henry  of  Navarre!" 

It  is  not  many  years  since  an  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  caused  thanks  to 
be  given  in  all  Anglican  churches  that  the 
Lord  of  Hosts  had  been  in  the  English 
camp  over  against  the  Egyptians.  Here- 
tofore the  great  religions  of  the  world 
have  held  out  hopes  of  direct  interven- 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tions  of  the  deity,  or  some  special  deity, 
in  favor  of  his  faithful  worshippers.  It 
was  the  greatest  Jewish  prophet  who  told 
King  Hezekiah  that  the  King  of  Assyr- 
ia, who  had  approached  Jerusalem  with 
a  great  army,  should  not  come  into  the 
city  nor  shoot  an  arrow  there,  and  re- 
ported the  Lord  as  saying,  "I  will  defend 
this  city  to  save  it,  for  my  own  sake,  and 
for  my  servant  David's  sake."  "And  it 
came  to  pass  that  night,  that  the  angel  of 
the  Lord  went  forth,  and  smote  in  the 
camp  of  the  Assyrians  an  hundred  four- 
score and  five  thousand;  and  when  men 
arose  early  in  the  morning,  behold,  they 
were  all  dead  corpses."  The  new  relig- 
ion cannot  promise  that  sort  of  aid  to 
either  nations  or  individuals  in  peril. 

13 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

(4)  In  the  religious  life  of  the  future 
the  primary  object  will  not  be  the  per- 
sonal welfare  or  safety  of  the  individual 
in  this  world  or  any  other.  That  safety, 
that  welfare  or  salvation,  may  be  inci- 
dentally secured,  but  it  will  not  be  the 
prime  object  in  view.  The  religious  per- 
son will  not  think  of  his  own  welfare  or 
security,  but  of  service  to  others,  and  of 
contributions  to  the  common  good.  The 
new  religion  will  not  teach  that  character 
is  likely  to  be  suddenly  changed,  either  in 
this  world  or  in  any  other, — although  in 
any  world  a  sudden  opportunity  for  im- 
provement may  present  itself,  and  the 
date  of  that  opportunity  may  be  a  prec- 
ious remembrance.  The  new  religion 
will  not  rely  on  either  a  sudden  conver- 
14 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

sion  in  this  world  or  a  sudden  paradise 
in  the  next,  from  out  a  sensual,  selfish,  or 
dishonest  life.  It  will  teach  that  repen- 
tance wipes  out  nothing  in  the  past,  and 
is  only  the  first  step  towards  reformation, 
and  a  sign  of  a  better  future. 

(5)  The  religion  of  the  future  will  not 
be  propitiatory,  sacrificial,  or  expia- 
tory. In  primitive  society  fear  of  the  su- 
pernal powers,  as  represented  in  the  aw- 
ful forces  of  nature,  was  the  root  of  re- 
ligion. These  dreadful  powers  must  be 
propitiated  or  placated,  and  they  must 
be  propitiated  by  sacrifices  in  the  most 
literal  sense;  and  the  supposed  offences 
of  man  must  be  expiated  by  sufferings, 
which  were  apt  to  be  vicarious.  Even 
the  Hebrews  offered  human  sacrifices 
15 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

for  generations;  and  always  a  great  part 
of  their  religious  rites  consisted  in  sacri- 
fices of  animals.  The  Christian  church 
made  a  great  step  forward  when  it  sub- 
stituted the  burning  of  incense  for  the 
burning  of  bullocks  and  doves ;  but  to 
this  day  there  survives  not  only  in  the 
doctrines  but  in  the  practices  of  the 
Christian  chuch  the  principle  of  expia- 
tory sacrifice.  It  will  be  an  immense  ad- 
vance if  the  twentieth-century  Christiani- 
ty can  be  purified  from  all  these  survivals 
of  barbarous,  or  semi-barbarous,  relig- 
ious conceptions,  because  they  imply  such 
an  unworthy  idea  of  God. 

(6)  The  religion  of  the  future  will  not 
perpetuate  the  Hebrew  anthropomorphic 
representations     of     God,     conceptions 
16 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

which  were  carried  in  a  large  measure 
into  institutional  Christianity.  It  will  not 
think  of  God  as  an  enlarged  and  glorified 
man,  who  walks  "in  the  garden  in  the  cool 
of  the  day,"  or  as  a  judge  deciding  be- 
tween human  litigants,  or  as  a  king, 
Pharaoh,  or  emperor,  ruling  arbitrarily 
his  subjects,  or  as  the  patriarch  who,  in 
the  early  history  of  the  race,  ruled  his 
family  absolutely.  These  human  func- 
tions will  cease  to  represent  adequately 
the  attributes  of  God.  The  nineteenth 
century  has  made  all  these  conceptions 
of  deity  look  archaic  and  crude. 

(7) The  religion  of  the  future  will  not 

be  gloomy,   ascetic,  or  maledictory.     It 

will   not  deal  chiefly  with  sorrow  and 

death,  but  with  joy  and  life.    It  will  not 

17 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

care  so  much  to  account  for  the  evil  and 
the  ugly  in  the  world  as  to  interpret  the 
good  and  the  beautiful.  It  will  believe 
in  no  malignant  powers — neither  in  Sa- 
tan nor  in  witches,  neither  in  the  evil  eye 
nor  in  the  malign  suggestion.  When 
its  disciple  encounters  a  wrong  or  evil  in 
the  world,  his  impulse  will  be  to  search 
out  its  origin,  source,  or  cause,  that  he 
may  attack  it  at  its  starting-point.  He 
may  not  speculate  on  the  origin  of  evil 
in  general,  but  will  surely  try  to  discover 
the  best  way  to  eradicate  the  particular 
evil  or  wrong  he  has  recognized. 

Having  thus  considered  what  the  re- 
ligion of  the  future  will  not  be,  let  us 
now  consider  what  its  positive  elements 
will  be. 

18 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

The  new  thought  of  God  will  be  its 
most  characteristic  element.  This  ideal 
will  comprehend  the  Jewish  Jehovah,  the 
Christian  Universal  Father,  the  modern 
physicist's  omnipresent  and  exhaustless 
Energy,  and  the  biological  conception  of 
a  Vital  Force.  The  Infinite  Spirit  per- 
vades the  universe,  just  as  the  spirit  of  a 
man  pervades  his  body,  and  acts,  con- 
ciously  or  unconsciously,  in  every  atom 
of  it.  The  twentieth  century  will  accept 
literally  and  implicitly  St.  Paul's  state- 
ment, "In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being,"  and  God  is  that  vital 
atmosphere,  or  incessant  inspiration.  The 
new  religion  is  therefore  thoroughly 
monotheistic,  its  God  being  the  one  in- 
19 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

finite  force;  but  this  one  God  is  not  with- 
drawn or  removed,  but  indwelling,  and 
especially  dwelling  in  every  living  creat- 
ure. God  is  so  absolutely  immanent  in 
all  things,  animate  and  inanimate,  that 
no  mediation  is  needed  between  him  and 
the  least  particle  of  his  creation.  In  his 
moral  attributes,  he  is  for  every  man  the 
multiplication  to  infinity  of  all  the  nob- 
lest, tenderest,  and  most  potent  qualities 
which  that  man  has  ever  seen  or  imagined 
in  a  human  being.  In  this  sense  every 
man  makes  his  own  picture  of  God. 
Every  age,  barbarous  or  civilized,  happy 
or  unhappy,  improving  or  degenerating, 
frames  its  own  conception  of  God  within 
the  limits  of  its  own  experiences  and 
imaginings.  In  this  sense,  too,  a  humane 
20 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

religion  has  to  wait  for  a  humane  gene- 
ration. The  central  thought  of  the  new 
religion  will  therefore  be  a  humane  and 
worthy  idea  of  God,  thoroughly  consis- 
tent with  the  nineteenth-century  revela- 
tions concerning  man  and  nature,  and 
with  all  the  tenderest  and  loveliest  teach- 
ings which  have  come  down  to  us  from 
the  past. 

The  scientific  doctrine  of  one  omni- 
present, eternal  Energy,  informing  and 
inspiring  the  whole  creation  at  every  in- 
stant of  time  and  throughout  the  infinite 
spaces,  is  fundamentally  and  completely 
inconsistent  with  the  dualistic  conception 
which  sets  spirit  over  against  matter, 
good  over  against  evil,  man's  wickedness 
against  God's   righteousness,   and   Satan 

21 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

against  Christ.  The  doctrine  of  God's 
immanence  is  also  inconsistent  with  the 
conception  that  he  once  set  the  universe 
a-going,  and  then  withdrew,  leaving  the 
universe  to  be  operated  under  physical 
laws,  which  were  his  vicegerents  or  sub- 
stitutes. If  God  is  thoroughly  immanent 
in  the  entire  creation,  there  can  be  no 
"secondary  causes,"  in  either  the  materi- 
al or  the  spiritual  universe.  The  new  re- 
ligion rejects  absolutely  the  conception 
that  man  is  an  alien  in  the  world,  or  that 
God  is  alienated  from  the  world.  It  re- 
jects also  the  entire  conception  of  man  as 
a  fallen  being,  hopelessly  wicked,  and 
tending  downward  by  nature;  and  it 
makes  this  emphatic  rejection  of  long- 
accepted  beliefs  because  it  finds  them  all 

22 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

inconsistent  with  a  humane,  civilized,  or 
worthy  idea  of  God. 

If,  now,  man  discovers  God  through 
self-conscious,  or,  in  other  words,  if  it 
is  the  human  soul  through  which  God  is 
revealed  the  race  has  come  to  the  know- 
ledge of  God  through  knowledge  of  it- 
self; and  the  best  knowledge  of  God 
comes  through  knowledge  of  the  best  of 
the  race.  Men  have  always  attributed 
to  man  a  spirit  distinct  from  his  body, 
though  immanent  in  it.  No  one  of  us  is 
willing  to  identify  himself  with  his  body; 
but  on  the  contrary  every  one  now  be- 
lieves, and  all  men  have  believed,  that 
there  is  in  a  man  an  animating,  ruling, 
characteristic  essence,  or  spirit,  which  is 
himself.  The  spirit,  dull  or  bright,  petty 
23 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

or  grand,  pure  or  foul,  looks  out  of  the 
eyes,  sounds  in  the  voice,  and  appears  in 
the  bearing  and  manners  of  each  indi- 
vidual. It  is  something  just  as  real  as  the 
body,  and  more  characteristic.  To  every 
influential  person  it  gives  far  the  greater 
part  of  his  power.  It  is  what  we  call  the 
personality.  This  spirit,  or  soul,  is  the 
most  effective  part  of  every  human  being, 
and  is  recognized  as  such,  and  always  has 
been.  It  can  use  a  fine  body  more  effec- 
tively than  it  can  a  poor  body,  but  it  can 
do  wonders  through  an  inadequate  body. 
In  the  crisis  of  a  losing  battle,  it  is  a  hu- 
man soul  that  rallies  the  flying  troops. 
It  looks  out  of  flashing  eyes,  and  speaks 
in  ringing  tones,  but  it  appeals  to  other 
souls,  and  not  to  other  bodies.  In  the 
24 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

midst  of  terrible  natural  catastrophes, — 
earthquakes,  storms,  conflagrations,  vol- 
canic eruptions, — when  men's  best  works 
are  being  destroyed  and  thousands  of 
lives  are  ceasing  suddenly  and  horribly, 
it  is  not  a  few  especially  good  human 
bodies  which  steady  the  survivors,  main- 
tain order,  and  organize  the  forces  of 
rescue  and  relief.  It  is  a  few  superior 
souls.  The  leading  men  and  women  in 
any  society,  savage  or  civilized,  are  the 
strongest  personalities, — the  personality 
being  primarily  spiritual,  and  only  sec- 
ondarily bodily.  Recognizing  to  the 
full  these  simple  and  obvious  facts,  the 
future  religion  will  pay  homage  to  all 
righteous  and  loving  persons  who  in  the 
past    have    exemplified,    and   made    in- 

25 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

telligible  to  their  contemporaries  intrin- 
sic goodness  and  effluent  good-will.  It 
will  be  an  all-saints  religion.  It  will 
treasure  up  all  tales  of  human  excellence 
and  virtue.  It  will  reverence  the  dis- 
coverers, teachers,  martyrs,  and  apostles 
of  liberty,  purity,  and  righteousness.  It 
will  respect  and  honor  all  strong  and 
lovely  human  beings, — seeing  in  them  in 
finite  measure  qualities  similar  to  those 
which  they  adore  in  God.  Recognizing 
in  every  great  and  lovely  human  person 
an  individual  will-power  which  is  the  es- 
sence of  the  personality,  it  will  naturally 
and  inevitably  attribute  to  God  a  similar 
individual  will-power,  the  essence  of  his 
infinite  personality.  In  this  simple  and 
natural  faith  there  will  be  no  place  for 
26 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

metaphysical  complexities  or  magical 
rites,  much  less  for  obscure  dogmas,  the 
result  of  compromises  in  turbulent  con- 
ventions. It  is  anthropormorphic;  but 
what  else  can  a  human  view  of  God's 
personality  be?  The  finite  can  study 
and  describe  the  infinite  only  through 
analogy,  parallelism,  and  simile;  but 
that  is  a  good  way.  The  new  religion 
will  animate  and  guide  ordinary  men 
and  women  who  are  putting  into  prac- 
tice religious  conceptions  which  result 
directly  from  their  own  observation  and 
precious  experience  of  tenderness,  sym- 
pathy, trust,  and  solemn  joy.  It  will  be 
most  welcome  to  the  men  and  women 
who  cherish  and  exhibit  incessant,  all- 
comprehending  good-will.  These  are 
27 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  "good"  people.     These  are  the  only 
genuinely  civilized  persons. 

To  the  wretched,  sick,  and  downtrod- 
den of  the  earth,  religion  has  in  the  past 
held  out  hopes  of  future  compensation. 
When  precious  ties  of  affection  have 
been  broken,  religion  has  held  out  pros- 
pects of  immediate  and  eternal  blessings 
for  the  departed;  and  has  promised  hap- 
py reunions  in  another  and  a  better 
world.  To  a  human  soul,  lodged  in  an 
imperfect,  feeble,  or  suffering  body, 
some  of  the  older  religions  have  held 
out  the  expectation  of  deliverance  by 
death,  and  of  entrance  upon  a  rich,  com- 
petent, and  happy  life, — in  short  for 
present  human  ills,  however  crushing, 
the  widely  accepted  religions  have  offered 
28 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

either  a  second  life,  presumably  immor- 
tal, under  the  happiest  conditions,  or  at 
least  peace,  rest,  and  a  happy  oblivion. 
Can  the  future  religion  promise  that 
sort  of  compensation  for  the  ills  of  this 
world,  any  more  that  it  can  promise  mir- 
aculous aid  against  threatened  disaster? 
A  candid  reply  to  this  inquiry  involves 
the  statement  that  in  the  future  religion 
there  will  be  nothing  "supernatural." 
This  does  not  mean  that  life  will  be 
stripped  of  mystery  or  wonder,  or  that 
the  range  of  natural  law  has  been  finally 
determined;  but  that  religion,  like  all 
else,  must  conform  to  natural  law  so 
far  as  the  range  of  law  has  been  deter- 
mined. In  this  sense  the  religion  of  the 
future  will  be  a  natural  religion.  In 
29 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

all  its  theory  and  all  its  practice  it  will 
be  completely  natural.  It  will  place  no 
reliance  on  any  sort  of  magic,  or  miracle, 
or  other  violation  of,  or  exception  to,  the 
laws  of  nature.  It  will  perform  no  mag- 
ical rites,  use  no  occult  processes,  count 
on  no  abnormal  interventions  of  super- 
nal powers,  and  admit  no  possession  of 
supernatural  gifts,  whether  transmitted 
or  conferred,  by  any  tribe,  class,  or 
family  of  men.  Its  sacraments  will  be, 
not  invasions  of  law  by  miracle,  but  the 
visible  signs  of  a  natural  spiritual  grace, 
or  of  a  natural  hallowed  custom.  It 
may  preserve  historical  rites  and 
ceremonies,  which,  in  times  past,  have 
represented  the  expectation  of  magical 
of  miraculous  effects;  but  it  will  be  con- 
30 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tent  with  natural  interpretations  of  such 
rites  and  ceremonies.  Its  priests  will  be 
men  especially  interested  in  religious 
thought,  possessing  unusual  gifts  of 
speech  on  devotional  subjects,  and 
trained  in  the  best  methods  of  improving 
the  social  and  industrial  conditions  of 
human  life.  There  will  always  be  need 
of  such  public  teachers  and  spiritual 
leaders,  heralds,  and  prophets.  It  should 
be  observed,  however,  that  many  hap- 
penings and  processes  which  were  for- 
merly regarded  as  supernatural  have, 
with  the  increase  of  knowledge  come 
to  be  regarded  as  completely  natural. 
The  line  between  the  supposed  natural 
and  the  supposed  supernatural  is,  there- 
fore, not  fixed  but  changeable. 

3i 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  com- 
pletely natural  quality  of  the  future  re- 
ligion excludes  from  it  many  of  the  relig- 
ious compensations  and  consolations  of 
the  past.  Twentieth-century  soldiers,  go- 
ing into  battle,  will  not  be  able  to  say  to 
each  other,  as  Moslem  soldiers  did  in  the 
tenth  century,  "If  we  are  killed  today, 
we  shall  meet  again  tonight  in  Paradise." 
Even  now,  the  mother  who  loses  her 
babe,  or  the  husband  his  wife,  by  a  pre- 
ventable disease,  is  seldom  able  to  say, 
simply,  "It  is  the  will  of  God!  The  babe 
— or  the  woman — is  better  off  in  heaven 
than  on  earth.  I  resign  this  dear  object  of 
love  and  devotion,  who  has  gone  to  a 
happier  world."  The  ordinary  consola- 
tions of  institutional  Christianity  no 
32 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

longer  satisfy  intelligent  people  whose 
lives  are  broken  by  the  sickness  or  pre- 
mature death  of  those  they  love.  The 
new  religion  will  not  attempt  to  recon- 
cile men  and  women  to  present  ills  by 
promises  of  future  blessedness,  either 
for  themselves  of  for  others.  Such  prom- 
ises have  done  infinite  mischief  in  the 
world,  by  inducing  men  to  be  patient  un- 
der sufferings  or  deprivations  against 
which  they  should  have  incessantly 
struggled.  The  advent  of  a  just  freedom 
for  the  mass  of  mankind  has  been  de- 
layed for  centuries  by  just  this  effect 
of  compensatory  promises  issued  by 
churches. 

The    religion  of   the   future   will   ap- 
proach the  whole  subject  of  evil  from  an- 
other side,  that  of  resistance  and  preven- 
33 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tion.  The  Breton  sailor,  who  had  had 
his  arm  poisoned  by  a  dirty  fish  hook 
which  had  entered  his  finger,  made  a 
votive  offering  at  the  shrine  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mary,  and  prayed  for  a  cure.  The 
workman  today,  who  gets  cut  or  bruised 
by  a  rough  or  dirty  instrument,  goes  to 
a  surgeon,  who  applies  an  antiseptic 
dressing  to  the  wound,  and  prevents  the 
poisoning.  That  surgeon  is  one  of  the 
ministers  of  the  new  religion.  When 
dwellers  in  a  slum  suffer  the  familiar 
evils  caused  by  overcrowding,  impure 
food,  and  cheerless  labor,  the  modern 
true  believers  contend  against  the  sources 
of  such  misery  by  providing  public 
baths,  playgrounds,  wider  and  cleaner 
streets,  better  dwellings,  and  more  effec- 
tive schools, — that  is,  they  attack  the 
34 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

sources  of  physical  and  moral  evil. 
The  new  religion  cannot  supply  the  old 
sort  of  consolation;  but  it  can  diminish 
the  need  of  consolation,  or  reduce  the 
number  of  occasions  for  consolation. 

A  further  change  in  religious  think- 
ing has  already  occurred  on  the  subject 
of  human  pain.  Pain  was  generally  re- 
garded as  a  punishment  for  sin,  or  as  a 
menas  of  moral  training,  or  as  an  expia- 
tion, vicarious  or  direct.  Twentieth- 
century  religion,  gradually  perfected  in 
this  respect  during  the  last  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  regards  human  pain 
as  an  evil  to  be  relieved  and  prevented 
by  the  promptest  means  possible,  and  by 
any  sort  of  available  means,  physical, 
mental  or  moral;  and,  thanks  to  the  pro- 
gress of  biological  and  chemical  science, 

35 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

there  is  comparatively  little  physical  pain 
nowadays  which  cannot  be  prevented  or 
relieved.  The  invention  of  anaesthetics 
has  brought  into  contempt  the  expiatory, 
or  penal,  view  of  human  pain  in  this 
world.  The  younger  generations  listen 
with  incredulous  smiles  to  the  objection 
made  only  a  little  more  than  sixty  years 
ago  by  some  divines  of  the  Scottish 
Presbyterian  church  to  the  employment 
of  chloroform  in  childbirth,  namely,  that 
the  physicians  were  interfering  with 
the  execution  of  a  curse  pronounced  by 
the  Almighty.  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  a 
physician  who  has  seen  much  of  mental 
pain  as  well  as  of  bodily,  in  his  poem 
read  at  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
first  public  demonstation  of  surgical  an- 
aesthesia, said  of  pain: 

36 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

"What  purpose  hath  it?  Nay,  thy  quest 
is  vain: 

Earth  hath  no  answer :    If  the  baffled  brain 

Cries,  Tis  to  warn,  to  punish,  Ah,  refrain! 

When  writhes  the  child,  beneath  the  sur- 
geon's hand, 

What  soul  shall  hope  that  pain  to  under- 
stand ? 

Lo!     Science  falters  o'er  the  hopeless  task, 

And  Love  and  Faith  in  vain  an  answer  ask/' 

A  similar  change  is  occuring  in  regard 
to  the  conception  of  divine  justice.  The 
evils  in  this  world  have  been  regarded  as 
penalties  inflicted  by  a  just  God  on  hu- 
man beings  who  had  violated  his  laws; 
and  the  justice  of  God  played  a  great 
part  in  his  imagined  dealings  with  the 
human  race.  A  young  graduate  of  And- 
over  Theological  Seminary  once  told  me 
that  when  he  had  preached  two  or  three 
times  in  summer  in  a  small  Congrega- 
tional church  on  Cape  Cod,  one  of  the 
37 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

deacons  of  the  church  said  to  him  at  the 
close  of  the  service,  "What  sort  of  senti- 
mental mush  is  this  that  they  are  teach- 
ing you  at  Andover?  You  talk  every 
Sunday  about  the  love  of  God;  we  want 
to  hear  about  his  justice."  The  future 
religion  will  not  undertake  to  describe, 
or  even  imagine,  the  justice  of  God.  We 
are  today  so  profoundly  dissatisfied  with 
human  justice,  although  it  is  the  result 
of  centuries  of  experience  of  social  good 
and  ill  in  this  world,  that  we  may  well 
distrust  human  capacity  to  conceive  of 
the  justice  of  a  morally  perfect,  infinite 
being.  The  civilized  nations  now  rec- 
ognize the  fact  that  legal  punishments 
usually  fail  of  their  objects,  or  cause 
wrongs  'and  evils  greater  than  those  for 

38 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

which  the  punishments  were  inflicted ; 
so  that  penology,  or  the  science  of  penal- 
ties, Jias  still  to  be  created.  It  is  only 
very  lately  that  the  most  civilized  com- 
munities began  to  learn  how  to  deal  with 
criminal  tendencies  in  the  young.  In 
the  eyes  of  God  human  beings  must  all 
seem  very  young.  Since  our  ideas  of 
God's  modes  of  thinking  and  acting  are 
necessarily  based  on  the  best  human  at- 
tainments in  similar  directions,  the  new 
religion  cannot  pretend  to  understand 
God's  justice,  inasmuch  as  there  is  no  hu- 
man experience  of  public  justice  fit  to 
serve  aks  the  foundation  for  a  true  con- 
ception of  God's.  The  new  religion 
will  magnify  and  laud  God's  love  and 
compassion,  and  will  not  venture  to  state 

39 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

what  the  justice  of  God  may,  or  may  not, 
require  of  himself,  or  of  any  of  his  finite 
creatures.  This  will  be  one  of  the 
great  differences  between  the  future  re- 
ligion and  the  past.  Institutional  Chris- 
tianity as  a  rule  condemned  the  mass  of 
of  mankind  to  eternal  torment;  partly 
because  the  leaders  of  the  churches 
thought  !vthey  understood  completely  the 
justice  of  God,  and  partly  because  the 
exclusive  possession  of  means  of  deliver- 
ance gave  the  churches  some  restraining 
influence  over  even  the  boldest  sinners, 
and  much  over  the  timid.  The  new  relig- 
ion will  make  no  such  pretentions,  and 
will  teach  no  such  horrible  and  perverse 
doctrines. 

Do  you  ask  what  consolation  for  hu- 
40 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

man  ills  the  new  religion  will  offer?  I 
answer,  the  consolation  which  comes  to 
answer,  the  consolation  which  often 
comes  to  the  sufferer  from  being  more 
serviceable  to  others  than  he  was  before 
the  loss  or  the  suffering  for  which  con- 
solation is  needed;  the  consolation  of  be- 
ing one's  self  wiser  and  tenderer  than  be- 
fore, and  therefore  more  able  to  be  ser- 
viceable to  human  kind  in  the  best  ways ; 
the  consolation  through  the  memory, 
which  preserves  the  sweet  fragrance  of 
characters  and  lives  no  longer  in  pres- 
ence, recalls  the  joys  and  achievements 
of  those  lives  while  still  within  mortal 
view,  and  treasures  up  and  multiplies 
the  good  influences  they  exerted.  More- 
over, such  a  religion  has  no  tendency  to 

4i 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

diminish  the  force  in  this  world,  or  any- 
other,  of  the  best  human  imaginings  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  infinite  Spirit 
immanent  in  the  universe.  It  urges  its 
disciples  to  believe  that  as  the  best  and 
happiest  man  is  he  who  best  loves  and 
serves,  so  the  soul  of  the  universe  finds 
its  perfect  bliss  and  efficiency  in  supreme 
and  universal  love  and  service.  It  sees 
evidence  in  the  moral  history  of  the  hu- 
man race  that  a  loving  God  rules  the  uni- 
verse. Trust  in  this  supreme  rule  is 
genuine  consolation  and  support  under 
many  human  trials  and  sufferings. 
Nevertheless,  although  brave  and  patient 
endurance  of  evils  is  always  admirable, 
and  generally  happier  than  timid  or  im- 
patient conduct  under  suffering  or  wrong, 
42 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

it  must  be  admitted  that  endurance  or 
constancy  is  not  consolation,  and  that 
there  are  many  physical  and  mental  disa- 
bilities and  injuries  for  which  there  is  no 
consolation  in  a  literal  sense.  Human 
skill  may  mitigate  or  palliate  some  of 
them,  human  sympathy  and  kindness  may 
make  them  more  bearable,  but  neither 
religion  nor  philosophy  offers  any  com- 
plete consolation  for  them,  or  ever  has. 

In  thus  describing  the  consolations  for 
human  woes  and  evils  which  such  a  re- 
ligion can  offer,  its  chief  motives  have 
♦been  depicted.  They  are  just  those 
which  Jesus  said  summed  up  all  the 
commandments,  love  toward  God  and 
brotherliness  to  man.  It  will  teach  a 
universal  good-will  under  the  influence 

43 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

of  which  men  will  do  their  duty,  and  at 
the  same  time,  promote  their  own  happi- 
ness. The  devotees  of  a  religion  of  ser- 
vice will  always  be  asking  what  they 
can  contribute  to  the  common  good; 
but  their  greatest  service  must  always  be 
to  increase  the  stock  of  good-will  among 
'men.  One  of  the  worst  of  chronic 
human  evils  is  working  for  daily  bread 
without  any  interest  in  the  work,  and 
with  ill-will  towards  the  institution  or 
person  that  provides  the  work.  The 
work  of  the  world  must  be  done;  and 
the  great  question  is,  shall  it  be  done 
happily  or  unhappily?  Much  of  it  is 
today  done  unhappily.  The  new  relig- 
ion will  contribute  powerfully  toward 
the  reduction  of  this  mass  of  unneces- 
44 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

sary  misery,  and  will  do  so  chiefly  by 
promoting  good-will  among  men. 

A  paganized  Hebrew-Christianity  has 
unquestionably  made  much  of  personal 
sacrifice  as  a  religious  duty.  The  new 
religion  will  greatly  qualify  the  sup- 
posed duty  of  sacrifice,  and  will  re- 
gard all  sacrifices  as  unnecessary  and  in- 
jurious, except  those  which  love  dictates 
and  justifies.  "Greater  love  hath  no 
maif  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his 
life  for  his  friends."  Self-sacrifice  is  not 
a  good  or  a  merit  in  itself;  it  must  be 
intelligent  and  loving  to  be  meritorious, 
and  the  object  in  view  must  be  worth  its 
price.  Giving  up  attractive  pleasures  or 
labors  in  favor  of  some  higher  satisfac- 
tion, or  some  engrossing  work,  is  not 
45 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

self-sacrifice.  It  is  a  renunciation  of  in- 
ferior or  irrelevant  objects  in  favor  of 
one  superior  object;  it  is  only  the  intelli- 
gent inhibition  of  whatever  distracts 
from  the  main  pursuit,  or  the  worthiest 
task.  Here,  again,  the  new  religion  will 
teach  that  happiness  goes  with  dutiful- 
ness  even  in  this  world. 

All  the  religions  have  been,  to  a  great- 
er or  less  extent,  uplifting  and  inspiring, 
in  the  sense  that  they  raised  men's 
thoughts  to  some  power  above  them,  to 
some  being  or  beings,  which  had  more 
power  and  more  duration  than  the  wor- 
shippers had.  When  kings  or  emperors 
were  deified,  they  were  idealized,  and  so 
lifted  men's  thoughts  out  of  the  daily 
round  of  their  ordinary  lives.      As  the 

46 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

objects  of  worship  became  nobler,  purer, 
and  kinder  with  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion, the  prevailing  religion  became  more 
stimulating  to  magnanimity  and  right- 
eousness. Will  the  future  religion  be  as 
helpful  to  the  spirit  of  man?  Will  it 
touch  his  imagination  as  the  anthropo- 
morphism of  Judaism,  polytheism,  Is- 
lam, and  paganized  Christianity  have 
done?  Can  it  be  as  moving  to  the  hu- 
man soul  as  the  deified  powers  of  nature, 
the  various  gods  and  goddesses  that  in- 
habited sky,  ocean,  mountains,  groves 
and  streams,  or  the  numerous  deities,  re- 
vered in  the  various  Christian  commun- 
ions,—  God  the  Father,  the  Son  of  God, 
the  Mother  of  God,  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  the  host  of  tutelary  saints?  All 
47 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

these  objects  of  worship  have  greatly 
moved  the  human  soul,  and  have  inspired 
men  to  thoughts  and  deeds  of  beauty, 
love,  and  duty.  Will  the  new  religion 
do  as  much?  It  is  reasonable  to  expect 
that  it  will.  The  sentiments  of  awe  and 
reverence,  and  the  love  of  beauty  and 
goodness,  will  remain,  and  will  increase 
in  strength  and  influence.  All  the  natu- 
ral human  affections  will  remain  in  full 
force.  The  new  religion  will  foster 
powerfully  a  virtue  which  is  compara- 
tively new  in  the  world — the  love  of 
truth  and  the  passion  for  seeking  it,  and 
the  truth  will  progressively  make  men 
free;  so  that  the  coming  generations  will 
be  freer,  and  therefore  more  productive 
and  stronger  than  the  preceding.     The 

48 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

new  religionists  will  not  worship  their 
ancestors;  but  they  will  have  a  stronger 
sense  of  the  descent  of  the  present  from 
the  past  than  men  have  ever  had  before, 
and  each  generation  will  feel  more 
strongly  than  ever  before  its  indebtedness 
to  the  preceding. 

The  two  sentiments  which  most  inspire 
men  to  good  deeds  are  love  and  hope. 
Religion  should  give  freer  and  more 
rational  play  to  these  two  sentiments  than 
the  world  has  heretofore  witnessed;  and 
the  love  and  hope  will  be  thoroughly 
grounded  in  and  on  efficient,  serviceable, 
visible,  actual,  and  concrete  deeds  and 
conduct.  When  a  man  works  out  a  suc- 
cessful treatment  for  cerebro-spinal  men- 
ingitis— a  disease  before  which  medicine 

49 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

was  absolutely  helpless  a  dozen  years  ago 
— by  applying  to  the  discovery  of  a  rem- 
edy ideas  and  processes  invented  or  de- 
veloped by  other  men  studying  other  dis- 
eases, he  does  a  great  work  of  love,  pre- 
vents for  the  future  the  breaking  of  in- 
numerable ties  of  love,  and  establishes 
good  grounds  for  hope  of  many  like  bene- 
fits for  human  generations  to  come.  The 
men  who  do  such  things  in  the  present 
world  are  ministers  of  the  religion  of  the 
future.  The  future  religion  will  prove, 
has  proved,  as  effective  as  any  of  the 
older  ones  in  inspiring  men  to  love  and 
serve  their  fellow-beings, — and  that  is 
the  true  object  and  end  of  all  philoso- 
phies and  all  religions;  for  that  is  the 
way  to  make  men  better  and  happier, 
alike  the  servants  and  the  served. 

5o 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

The  future  religion  will  have  the  at- 
tributes of  universality  and   of  adapta- 
bility to  the  rapidly  increasing  stores  of 
knowledge   and   power  over  nature   ac- 
quired by  the  human   race.     As  the  re- 
ligion of  a  child  is  inevitably  very  differ- 
ent  from    that   of    an    adult,    and   must 
grow  up  with  the  child,  so  the  religion 
of  a   race  whose  capacities  are  rapidly 
enlarging  must  be   capable  of  a  corre- 
sponding development.    The  religion  of 
any  single  individual  ought  to  grow  up 
with  him  all  the  way  from  infancy  to 
age ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  religion 
of  a  race.     It  is  bad  for  any  people  to 
stand  still  in  their  governmental  concep- 
tions and  practices,  or  in  the  organiza- 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

and  teachers,  of  men  with  one  another, 
of  men's  intelligence  with  the  forces  of 
nature.  It  will  teach  only  such  uses  of 
authority  as  are  necessary  to  secure  the 
co-operation  of  several  or  many  people 
to  one  end;  and  the  discipline  it  will 
advocate  will  be  training  in  the  develop- 
ment of  co-operative  good-will. 

Will  such  a  religion  as  this  make  prog- 
ress in  the  twentieth-century  world? 
You  have  heard  in  this  Summer  School 
of  Theology  much  about  the  conflict  be- 
tween materialism  and  religious  ideal- 
ism, the  revolt  against  long-accepted  dog- 
mas, the  frequent  occurrence  of  waves  of 
reform,  sweeping  through  and  some- 
times over  the  churches,  the  effect  of 
modern  philosophy,  ethical  theories,  soc- 
54 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

ial  hopes,  and  democratic  principles  on 
the  established  churches,  and  the  aban- 
donment of  churches  altogether  by  a 
large  proportion  of  the  population  in 
countries  mainly  Protestant.  You  know, 
too,  how  other  social  organizations  have, 
in  some  considerable  measure,  taken  the 
place  of  churches.  Millions  of  Ameri- 
cans find  in  Masonic  organizations, 
lodges  of  Odd  Fellows,  benevolent  and 
fraternal  societies,  granges,  and  trades- 
unions,  at  once  their  practical  religion, 
and  the  satisfaction  of  their  social  needs. 
So  far  as  these  multifarious  organizations 
carry  men  and  women  out  of  their  indi- 
vidual selves  and  teach  them  mutual  re- 
gard and  social  and  industrial  co-opera- 
tion, they  approach  the  field  and  func- 
55 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

tions  of  the  religion  of  the  future.  The 
Spiritualists,  Christian  Scientists,  and 
mental  healers  of  all  sorts  manifest  a  good 
deal  of  ability  to  draw  people  away  from 
the  traditional  churches,  and  to  discredit 
traditional  dogmas  and  formal  creeds. 
Nevertheless,  the  great  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple remain  attached  to  the  traditional 
churches,  and  are  likely  to  remain  so, — 
partly  because  of  their  tender  associa- 
tions with  churches  in  the  grave  crises 
of  life,  and  partly  because  their  actual 
mental  condition  still  permits  them  to 
accept  the  beliefs  they  have  inherited  or 
been  taught  while  young.  The  new  relig- 
ion will  therefore  make  but  slow  prog- 
ress, so  far  as  outward  organization  goes. 
It  will,  however,  progressively  modify 
$6 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

the  creeds  and  religious  practices  of  all 
the  existing  churches,  and  change  their 
symbolism  and  their  teachings  concern 
ing  the  conduct  of  life.  Since  its  chief 
doctrine  is  the  doctrine  of  a  sublime  unity 
of  substance,  force,  and  spirit,  and  its 
chief  precept  is,  Be  serviceable,  it  will 
exert  a  strong,  united  influence  among 
men. 

Christian  unity  has  always  been  longed 
for  by  devout  believers,  but  has  been 
sought  in  impossible  ways.  Authorita- 
tive churches  have  tried  to  force  every- 
body within  their  range  to  hold  the  same 
opinions  and  unite  in  the  same  observ- 
ances, but  they  have  won  only  temporary 
and  local  successes.  As  freedom  has  in- 
creased in  the  world,  it  has  become  more 
57 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

and  more  difficult  J:o  enforce  even  out- 
ward conformity;  and  in  countries  where 
church  and  state  have  been  separated,  a 
great  diversity  of  religious  opinions  and 
practices  has  been  expressed  in  different 
religious  organizations,  each  of  which 
commands  the  effective  devotion  of  a 
fraction  of  the  population.  Since  it  is 
certain  that  men  are  steadily  gaining 
more  and  more  freedom  in  thought, 
speech,  and  action,  civilized  society 
might  as  well  assume  that  it  will  be  quite 
impossible  to  unite  all  religiously-mind- 
ed people  through  any  dogma,  creed, 
ceremony,  observance,  or  ritual.  All 
these  are  divisive,  not  uniting,  wherever 
a  reasonable  freedom  exists.  The  new 
religion  proposes  as  a  basis  of  unity,  first, 

53 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

its  doctrine  of  an  immanent  and  loving 
God,  and  secondly,  its  precept,  Be  ser- 
viceable to  fellow-men.  Already  there 
are  many  signs  in  the  free  countries  of 
the  world  that  different  religious  de- 
nominations can  unite  in  good  work  to 
promote  human  welfare.  The  support 
of  hospitals,  dispensaries,  and  asylums  by 
persons  connected  with  all  sorts  of  re- 
ligious denominations,  the  union  of  all 
denominations  in  carrying  on  Associated 
Charities  in  large  cities,  the  success  of 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations, 
and  the  numerous  efforts  to  form  fede- 
rations of  kindred  churches  for  practical 
purposes,  all  testify  to  the  feasibility  of 
extensive  co-operation  in  good  works. 
Again,   the  new  religion  cannot  create 

59 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

any  caste,  ecclesiastical  class,  or  exclus- 
ive sect  founded  on  a  rite.  On  these 
grounds  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
imagine  that  the  new  religion  will  prove 
a  unifying  influence,  and  a  strong  rein- 
forcement of  democracy. 

Whether  it  will  prove  as  efficient  to 
deter  men  from  doing  wrong  and  to  en- 
courage them  to  do  right  as  the  prevail- 
ing religions  have  been,  is  a  question 
which  only  experience  can  answer.  In 
these  two  respects  neither  the  threats  nor 
the  promises  of  the  older  religions  have 
been  remarkably  successful  in  society  at 
large.  The  fear  of  hell  has  not  proved 
effective  to  deter  men  from  wrong-doing, 
and  heaven  has  never  yet  been  described 
in  terms  very  attractive  to  the  average 
60 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

man  or  woman.  Both  are  indeed  un- 
imaginable. The  great  geniuses,  like 
Dante  and  Swedenborg,  have  produced 
only  fantastic  and  incredible  pictures  of 
cither  state.  The  modern  man  would 
hardly  feel  any  appreciable  loss  of  mo- 
tive-power toward  good  or  away  from 
evil  if  heaven  were  burnt  and  hell 
quenched.  The  prevailing  Christian 
conceptions  of  heaven  and  hell  have 
hardly  any  more  influence  with  educated 
people  in  these  days  than  Olympus  and 
Hades  have.  The  modern  mind  craves 
an  immediate  motive  or  leading,  good 
for  today  on  this  earth.  The  new  relig- 
ion builds  on  the  actual  experience  of 
men  and  women,  and  of  human  society 
as  a  whole.  The  motive  powers  it  relies 
61 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

on  have  been,  and  are,  at  work  in  in- 
numerable human  lives;  and  its  beatific 
visions  and  its  hopes  are  better  grounded 
than  those  of  traditional  religion,  and 
finer, — because  free  from  all  selfishness, 
and  from  the  imagery  of  governments, 
courts,  social  distinctions,  and  war. 

Finally,  this  twentieth-century  relig- 
ion is  not  only  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
great  secular  movements  of  modern  so- 
ciety— democracy,  individualism,  social 
idealism,  the  zeal  for  education,  the 
spirit  of  research,  the  modern  tendency 
to  welcome  the  new,  the  fresh  powers  of 
preventive  medicine,  and  the  recent 
advances  in  business  and  industrial  ethics 
— but  also  in  essential  agreement  with 
the  direct,  personal  teachings  of  Jesus,  as 
62 


RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

they  are  reported  in  the  Gospels.  The 
revelation  he  gave  to  mankind  thus  be- 
comes more  wonderful  than  ever. 


63 


1    1012  01091   9845 


DATE  DUE 

-"^^ 

M'g^ttii^ifr*^*^ 

r 

J  .^^h-t- 

N 

%M#W^*»] 

B 

_ 

v'^ 

* 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

